Zero

Zero from Anand L
Rai is in fact a very Anand L Rai film. It is almost like how Anand L Rai and
his writer Himanshu Sharma would approach if the idea of Martian was given to
them. But then that’s the problem. We need masala, songs and heartbreak in such
heavy dosage that when the movie got made, it became an extremely scattered
creation. Zero is watchable only because of the endearing performance by Shah
Rukh Khan.

Bauua Singh is a vertically
challenged person who has this arrogant tone. He is afraid of commitments. And
his first love also got broken because of this commitment fear. How this
attitude gets changed over a period of time with life experiences is what Zero ultimately
trying to tell us. This is what I can come up as a summary as the clumsiness
of the screenplay makes it difficult for me to summarize things without
revealing much.

The scattered nature of the plot is
the major problem in my view. Towards the climax there is a glimpse of Katrina
Kaif in the movie and I was like “”Oh hi! I almost forgot you were
there in the film”. The shifts of the plot points are so wacky that
Anand L Rai almost insults our intelligence. In the second half the gears are
getting shifted so quickly that the creative imagination excuse will no longer
sound sensible. In a recent interview I heard people addressing Zero as a high
concept film. Zero may have a plot element that is practically high concept.
But the movie to be honest has less interest in that concept.

As I
said, it is actually Anand L Rai’s lavish exploration of his usual movies.
Breaking the marriage in the beginning and committing to the same person in the
end is almost a self homage from Rai’s side. The problem is that the script
needed more conviction. You may have Red Chillies VFX doing the hefty duty of
creating the entire mission mars backdrop. But if the construction towards that
is haywire, nothing would make sense to the viewers. The whole Babita Kumari
episode looks convoluted. Babita Kumari was Himanshu Sharma’s tool to rectify
Bauua and in my opinion that tool wasn’t used properly. The areas were the
script scored was in the beginning portions where we got to see the real
unapologetic Bauua Singh. The cinematography was okay. The visual effects needs
to be appreciated for its work on creating Bauua Singh. The music and
background score also deserves appreciation fro creating the feel that the
screenplay couldn’t really generate.

Shah Rukh Khan in his Bauua Singh avatar is perhaps the only thing you will remember in Zero. The energy he imparts is impeccable and I absolutely enjoyed the free flowingBauua Singh. Anushka Sharma’s performance looked better, maybe because Anand L Rai made me go in with low expectations. Katrina Kaif as the depressed Babita Kumari is one more monotonous performance from her side. Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub was in his elements and was fun to watch. But I hated these exaggerated comedy bits using his character.

Zero
is way too ambitious. They are trying to incorporate too many things into one
plot. The grandeur of the concept sort of took away the heart from the movie
giving us an endearing male lead in a lackluster movie.

Rating:
2/5

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Final Thoughts

The grandeur of the concept sort of took away the heart from the movie giving us an endearing male lead in a lackluster movie.

Overall ScoreThe grandeur of the concept sort of took away the heart from the movie giving us an endearing male lead in a lackluster movie.2 /5